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A. Varensano interviewing Helen Fedorsha -11- 6/15/72
Tape 14-2

of girls got married, but they married American-born fellows, not foreigners. American-born fellows. And they had a terrible life with them. They drank too heavily. There's one in particular that I know, that, God, the poor soul got a beating on her wedding night. The bridesmaids all sitting in the room, and he came upstairs with something - our Mary was one of the bridesmaids, my sister Mary was one of the bridesmaids - and, I don't know, he had a couple drinks, well, maybe more than a couple. Well, they used to have big weddings. It wasn't anything fancy, it wasn't platter and all these fancy-dressed meats and everything, it was, no wedding cake, it was cookies, you had cookies on the table. And, he came into the room, I don't know for what, but the bridesmaids were all sitting there, and she said something to him and she had her face slapped. Right on her wedding day. She didn't leave him, though. Today, if a fellow did that, that would be the last he saw of her. She'd leave him. And she had a very miserable life for years. He drank heavily, and he believed in a wife being a servant, and she had her children quite close. She raised a nice family with her sister, and I used to go to her house. And we used to walk home from church. Well, I guess on his way home he would visit every saloon that is around. By the time he got home, he was pretty well loaded, and when he'd get home, he'd start hollering for no reason at all. And if she answered, then she got it. So one Sunday afternoon, my neighbor saved her. He was chasing her down the alley, and there were, the Banks were down at the end of the street, and the neighbor stepped out and he stopped. He waited until he knew that she was far enough away that he wouldn't get her. So that kind of life you had. But, tell that to the kids today, they's say, You don't know what you're talking about. That could never happen here, never. It happened.
AV: What kind of courtship did they have? Was there a customery walk, or something?'
HF: They used to go out for a little walk, but there ws no, well then in later years when they had picnics, well they would meet the girls at the picnics or they would take them to the picnic. But there wasn't this going out for drives and all that stuff. That didn't go on. After a little while the fellow would ask the girl to marry him and she would. Especially if she didn't have any parents here. Because she had to look out for herself.
AV: Did they meet at certain places or talk together in the living room, or something?
HF: Well, I doubt they really came into one another's homes that way. They usually stayed out, and take a walk around, and she'd go home. Because, even when I already was working, and there wasn't ???, well, where are you gonna walk, to Freeland, and then be coming home at all hours of the night. So we used to stay in town, and it just

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Mlb21

can not decipher the final paragraph.